Photographer's Note

The Bridge on the Drina : The Kapia
Also it is a novel by Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andric.
The following is an essay wroted by 2002 by Martin Kretzmann on it for an Eastern European Literature course at Grinnell College.

The Bridge on the Drina was erected out of pain, existed with pain and died in pain. This novel, written by Ivo Andric, portrays, through the stories of those who were there, the pain and the joy that centered on this bridge. Of particular interest is the recurring theme of piercing associated with the bridge.

Before the bridge was built, the "aga of the janissaries" came to take young boys of Bosnia to Stambul in order to put them to work for the Sultan. For these boys, the Drina was the point where their families were finally unable to pursue them further. One ten year old was especially affected, he felt "within himself...a sharp stabbing pain which seemed...to cut his chest in two and hurt terribly" (25). This pain was recurring throughout his life and was "always associated with the memory of that place where the road broke off...and of the stony banks of the river, across which the passage was so difficult, so expensive and so unsafe" (25). This boy grew up to be the Vezir, who provided for the construction of the bridge. In a sense, his heart had been pierced by the loss of his family and the struggle the river presented to travelers.